VAN DER POORTEN: Immatures of Satyrinae in Sri Lanka PEIGLER: Sericultural origin of A. pernyi TROP. LEPID. RES., 22(2): 93-99, 2012 93 DIVERSE EVIDENCE THAT ANTHERAEA PERNYI (LEPIDOPTERA: SATURNIIDAE) IS ENTIRELY OF SERICULTURAL ORIGIN Richard S. Peigler Department of Biology, University of the Incarnate Word, 4301 Broadway, San Antonio, Texas 78209-6397 U.S.A. email:
[email protected] and Research Associate, McGuire Center for Lepidoptera & Biodiversity, Gainesville, Florida 32611, U.S.A. Abstract - There is a preponderance of evidence that the tussah silkmoth Antheraea pernyi was derived thousands of years ago from the wild A. roylei. Historical, sericultural, morphological, cytogenetic, and taxonomic data are cited in support of this hypothesis. This explains why A. pernyi is very easy to mass rear, produces copious quantities of silk in its cocoons, and the oak tasar “hybrid”crosses between A. pernyi and A. roylei reared in India were fully fertile through numerous generations. The case is made that it is critical to conserve populations and habitats of the wild progenitor as a genetic resource for this economically important silkmoth. Key words: China, Chinese oak silkmoth, India, sericulture, temperate tasar silk, tussah silk, wild silk INTRODUCTION THE EVIDENCE Numerous examples are known for which domesticated Cytogenetic, physiological, and molecular evidence. animals or cultivated plants differ dramatically from their wild Studies investigating the cytogenetics of these moths reported ancestral species, and frequently the artificially-selected entity the chromosome numbers for A. roylei to be n=31 and for A. carries a separate scientific name from the one in nature. In some pernyi to be n=49, with n=31 being the modal (ancestral) number cases where the wild and domesticated animals are considered for most saturniids (Belyakova & Lukhtanov 1994, 1996, and to be the same species, and the latter were named first, references cited therein).